It’s all about you

With the pilot of my Zero to Planned workshop finished and the next group about to start, it feels like a great time to talk a little bit about planning and organizing and getting things done and balance.

Yeah. That’s a lot of ands, but that’s okay.

I’m going to tackle some of the questions I’ve been asked as I’ve rolled out my workshop for online classes.

Instead of diving right in, I’ll answer the “WHY” questions I keep getting: Why are you doing this and why are you qualified to do this?

This is actually a super easy answer for me: I lost my job as a Strategic HR Director for a big company this fall and I really don’t want to go back to office work. I found that the higher I went in my career, the more I was pounding my head against close-minded executives giving lip service to positive change, strong strategy, and internal growth brick walls.

I’d lost the ability to move in the way I used to at lower levels. I found myself purposefully finding time to personally work developing individuals (even though my last three companies didn’t truly value this), coaching, training, and mentoring those I saw who were open to it and made use of it.

That was the passion I’d had from the beginning. To balance the needs of the company with the needs of the employees. When I started working it was the era of the employee. Training was a huge budget item. Managers were judged on their employees’ success as well as other factors. People took growth personally.

I missed that. I’ve always kept a finger in it as much as possible — training new hires, speaking at colleges, working with first time managers, etc. But, the ability to dig in deep with people and really change lives was lost as I was working on high-level vision and strategy work.

So, when the job went away, and an opportunity came up to do what I do best…with writers??? No question there. No brainer. I couldn’t wait.

So, moving on, let’s talk about why a class about organizing and training should be all about you.

The thing that’s going to make or break your system is the one thing everyone has in common: YOU.

I can’t come to your house and make it work for you every day. I also know that what works for me is not going to work for everyone.

And, let’s get this out of the way right now: A clean desk doesn’t mean someone isn’t working OR isn’t creative OR is super organized…just like a messy desk isn’t the sign of a “messy mind” OR someone trying to do too much OR a person who can’t put their hands on anything at any given moment.

The first thing a good plan will do is help you look at what you do….followed by a bunch of personal questions (don’t worry – when I’m not one on one I don’t make people spill all their secrets!)

I’m sure everyone here has met someone really kicking butt at the getting-things-done-being-organized thing and thought, “I’ll just do what she’s doing. It works so well.” Only, 2 weeks in you want to light all your new organizing stuff on fire…but the darn fire ordinances have strong rules about that so instead you just push it off to the side, where it sits collecting dust and mocking you.

Sound about right?

That’s because you’re not her.

There’s probably some great ideas in her system that would work for you – but because people approach organizing as an all-or-nothing-fix-everything event (which, we’ll discuss later why organizing is not an event), when things aren’t immediately perfect, it’s a fail.

And, what happens when we fail? Most of us say, “Well, forget that – organizing doesn’t work for me.” (I guess there’s no horses in organizing.)

If your friend looked amazing in her wedding dress…let’s say she’s 5’9, a size 12, and curvy— and you’re 5’2 a sexy little waif of a fairy looking girl…would you wear her wedding dress? Um, no.

So, don’t use her system. Sure, you might have loved the lace neckline, so look for something with that — not the whole picture. Because it’s all about you.

Organizing should make your life easier. It shouldn’t be something that makes things harder or more complicated. Sure, like anything there will be a time of growth and learning, but let’s face it. No one is here to make life harder.

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